1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to content delivery and management within a private enterprise network.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well-known to deliver digital content (e.g., HTTP content, streaming media and applications) using an Internet content delivery network (ICDN). A content delivery network or “CDN” is a network of geographically distributed content delivery nodes that are arranged for efficient delivery of content on behalf of third party content providers. A request from a requesting end user for given content is directed to a “best” replica, where “best” usually means that the item is served to the client quickly compared to the time it would take to fetch it from the content provider origin server.
Typically, a CDN is implemented as a combination of a content delivery infrastructure, a request-routing mechanism, and a distribution infrastructure. The content delivery infrastructure usually comprises a set of “surrogate” origin servers that are located at strategic locations (e.g., Internet network access points, Internet Points of Presence, and the like) for delivering copies of content to requesting end users. The request-routing mechanism allocates servers in the content delivery infrastructure to requesting clients in a way that, for web content delivery, minimizes a given client's response time and, for streaming media delivery, provides for the highest quality. The distribution infrastructure consists of on-demand or push-based mechanisms that move content from the origin server to the surrogates. An effective CDN serves frequently-accessed content from a surrogate that is optimal for a given requesting client. In a typical CDN, a single service provider operates the request-routers, the surrogates, and the content distributors. In addition, that service provider establishes business relationships with content publishers and acts on behalf of their origin server sites to provide a distributed delivery system. A well-known commercial CDN service that provides web content and media streaming is provided by Akamai Technologies, Inc. of Cambridge, Mass.
Enterprises have begun to explore the desirability of implementing content delivery infrastructures to address several problems. Currently, enterprise users typically experience slow and expensive access to Internet content. Slow access to business critical data available on the Internet hurts productivity, and the cost of providing good access, e.g., by building bigger networks and by deploying and managing caching infrastructure, is large. In addition, many IT organizations cannot deliver the required quality of service for Internet content delivery due to lack of talent and expertise. Yet another reason corporations are exploring CDNs is because of the slow, expensive and often cumbersome access to and within the entity's intranet. As corporate intranets quickly become a critical component of business process in many large companies, fast and efficient access to the data and applications on the intranet is a high priority for many IT departments. Nevertheless, current intranet delivery solutions are inadequate, and solving the problems, e.g., by building bigger internal networks, deploying and managing caches, and distributing application front ends, is extremely expensive. To address these deficiencies, several large software vendors are attempting to build ecosystems to provide web-based front ends to many enterprise applications, however, distributing these application from front ends efficiently, in of itself, will be a critical IT problem that current technologies do not addresss. Finally, enterprises are considering CDN technology due to slow, expensive access to business partner applications and information provided by current techniques and solutions. Business-to-business applications (such as ordering, inventory, and pricing management) between business partners is done today by linking partners with a physical network. These applications are moving to the Internet/intranet, and the need to link business partners together in an efficient way with web-based front ends is another critical IT problem that is not addressed by today's solutions.